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SPEECH 




OF 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, ' 

IN DEFKXCE OF HIS CLAIM TO A SEAT !N THAT HODY FOR THE THIRTY- 

EIGHTK CONGRESS. 

l^Froni the Coti^ressional Globe of Ma:g 2lsi, 1864.] 



Mr. SEGAR: In the fall of 1861 a smaH number of the loyal voters 
of the county of Elizabeth C'ity, the county of my residence, appeared at 
the polls, ill pursuance of a proclamation of Francis H. Peirpoint, then 
the recognized loyal Governor of Virginia, and cast their votes for the 
humble individual before you, as tiieir Representative in the Thirty-Seventh 
Congress. At the time i was far away from my home, treading, for the 
first time in my life, the soil of New England, and not even aw^are that asi 
election was in contemplation. At first, I am frank to confess, I had no 
purpose of appropriating to myself the intended honor, having grave doubts 
of the legitimacy of the Wheeling government, under the auspices of 
which the election had taken place. But my doubts on that point having 
been removed by an able argument of the late Benjamin F. Hallet of Boston, 
published in the Boston Post, and to which my attention was called by a 
distinguished member of the Boston bar, I determined finally to make 
claim to the proffered seat. I accordingly appeared here to do so, but the 
House thought fit not to admit rae. 

, The chief objections taken to *my admission were, first, the one still 
raised, that all the loyal voters of the district had not had an opportunit3- 
of indicating their choice at the polls, and, secondly, that the election 
having been one to supply a vacancy, it should have been held by writ of 
election, and not executive proclamation. 

' Regarding the former of these objections as not soundly taken, and re- 
gardful of the rights of the State of which he was the acknowledged chief 
magistrate, Governor Peirpoint issued a writ for a new election. In this 
second election, I beg the House specially to note, only three counties 



voted — Accomac, Northampton, and Elizabeth City — and the vote cast 
was only 1,018, of which I received 559 ; and this number l)ein^ a major- 
ity of the votes cast, I received a certificate of election, and a second time 
appeared in this Hall, seeking admission. You kept me out in the cold, Mr. 
Speaker, for some seven or eight weeks, but finally, either taking- pity on 
me, or believing me entitled to membership, you kindly rescued me from 
my shivering position outside, brought me Avithin these doors, and con- 
ducted me to a seat in this House of Commons of this great nation. I 
took the seat ; and though it is not mine to boast a brilliant. I think 1 may 
not immodestly claim to have made at least an honorable record of my 
representative action. Elected as an unyielding Union man, I gave out- 
spoken Union votes, having supported every vital measure of the Govern- 
ment for the suppression of the rebellion. 

Well, sir, supposing the point then as noiv raised against me to have 
been overruled by the Solemn judgment of the House, and that the prin- 
ciple in my case had been definitively settled, I became a candidate for re- 
election, Avas elected by a large majority, and appeared here on the first 
day of the session to take my seat, never dreaming that the Clerk of the 
last house (Mr. Etheridge) would hesitate to place my name on his list of 
members elect — for I had presented a clear certificate of election, and had 
moreover been personally assured by him that my name was actually on 
his printed lists, my certificate of election being (as he said) all right 
— and still less conceiving it possible that the House, after the action of 
the last session, could for a moment hesitate over my admission. And 
yet, how stands the case? The Clerk, at a very late hour, thought fit to 
erase my name from the list on which he had put it, and this House, in- 
stead of standing by the decision of the last Congress, fairly and dispas- 
sionately made, has again kept me outside from early December till the 
summer solstice is almost upon us. In other words, though you admitted 
me the last session with a vote of only three counties of my district and 
a vote of 559, now, when I come here with the vote of four counties and 
a vote of 1,300 — more than twice larger now than then — your committee 
tell me I have no right to a seat; and while you admitted the 559 loyal 
voters who sent me here the last Congress to representation on this floor, 
you now deny it to the 1,300 who sent me to the present Congress ! And 
what, sir, is most remarkable and not a little mortifying, many of my old 
colleagues who voted to let me in in 18G2 refuse to admit me in 18G4! 

Such are, briefly, the facts of the case ; and 1 ask the House to bear 
them in mind while I proceed to demonstrate, as I am confident I can, my 
title to the seat I claim. Of my right to it on precedent, on principle, on law, 
on justice, and on public policy, I have no more doubt than 1 have of my 
right to my share of the sunlight of heaven. And if my good friend from 

'OS- 



Massachusetts, the chairman of the Committee of Elections, will but give 
me a patient liearing, (as I am sure he will,) I am not without hope of 
convincing him, not only that the conclusion of his report is erroneous, 
but that, on the very principles of his own report, I am entitled to a seat 
in this body, 

I rejoice, Mr. Speaker, that this case comes up now disembarrassed of 
all complications. It is admitted in the committee's report that there is 
Such a political organization as the State of Virginia — an admission for 
which I heartily thank them, for even that has been questioned in some 
high quarters ; that there is such a district as the First Congressional Dis- 
'irict of Virginia, duly laid off under an apportionment by the census of 
i860 ; that the election was regularly held at the times and the places 
appointed by law; and that I have a proper certificate of election from the 
officer charged b}^ law to grant it. So that there is but a single point in the 
case to be considered, so far as the Committee's report is concerned, and 
that point is, that all the loyal voters of the district, not having had an 
opportunity of reaching the polls, 1 cannot be said to be their choice, and 
therefore should not be admitted, for it is possible (they say) that some 
■other person might have been preferred as Representative. I think I have 
fairly stated the point in the committee's report, and on that point I take 
issue with them. I maintain exactly the reverse of the committee's reas- 
oning : that both principle and precedent are against the conclusion of the 
committee, and in favor of my admission. 

I hold, first, that under a precedent long ago set, (as far back as the year 
1826,) it is not competent for this House even to inquire whether or why 
any of the voters of ray district, or any other district, were absent from 
the polls. I refer to the case of Biddle and Richard vs. Wing, (Contested 
Elections in Congress, p. 504,) in v/hich it was charged by one of the 
■claimants, Richard, that a sufhcient number of his friends had been intim- 
idated from voting to defeat his election ; in other words, that but for ac- 
tual intimidation practised at the polls a sufficient number of his friends 
would have voted that did not vote to have given him a majority of the 
votes cast, and thus elected him. It was ruled that this inquiry could not 
be gone into at all. I quote from the case: 

"The Committee are of opinion that the duty assigned to them does not impose oh 
them an examination of the causes which may have prevented any candidate from 
getting a sufficient number of votes to entitle him to a seat. They consider it is only 
required of them to ascertain who had the greatest number of votes actually given at 
the election." 

And again : 

"The law appoints a particular time and place for the expression of the public voice; 
•aud whea that time is past it is too late to inquire who did not vote or the reason why. 



The on]y qoestion novr to be determiced is, for whom the greatest number of the legal 
rotes have been given," 

And further : 

"In all cases of contested elections, where the question depends upon naatters of 
fact, mucli diiBculty is to be expected in coming to ix decision ; and, vt-here there is 
reason for doubts, a disposition is often felt to return it to the people. This however, 
ought not to be done when it is possible to ascertain what the reso l has been. When 
a people, in the exercise of their constitutional rights, have gone through with the 
process of an election, according to the prescribed rules, they ought not to be deprived 
of the advantages accruing therefrom but for the most substantial reasons. No doubts 
which are capable of being solved ought to be permitted to operate against ihem. 
Indeed, nothing short of the impossibilitj of ascertainiug for whom the majority of 
the votes have been given ought to vacate an election ; more especially if by such 
decision the people must, on account of their distant and dispersed situation, neces- 
sarily be unrepresented for a long period of tiirse. The committee, being of opinion 
that in this case an election has been made, have proceeded to ascertain on whom the 
choice has fallen." 

Now. if ever a principle was set out with a pencil of light, here it is ; 
and what is it? It is this: that so important is the elective privilege that 
an election should never be set aside except when there is an absolute 
impossibility of ascertaining where the majority of the votes actually given 
lies; that so vital is the right of represeistntion in popular government, 
that it shall never be lost where it is possible to maintain it; that thoss 
who do go to the polls shall not be deprived of thg benefits of the inesti- 
mable privilege by those who do not go or could not go ; that no matter 
how many are absent from the polls, tiiose who are not absent shall come 
in for freedom's great vital right at representation ; and that however 
great the absence may be it shall not be taken into account, so as to inter- 
fere with the rights of non-absentees, unless there has been such general 
fraud or corruption as would vitiate the whole election. This is the prin- 
ciple laid down by the committee oi' 1826, and it is a sound one; it is 
founded pre-eminently in reason and in wisdom; it institutes no superflu- 
ous inquiry ; it is plain and incapable of perversion ; it raises the simple 
and diseiribarrasing questions, who did vote, and who received the great- 
est number of votes given — an inquiry sufficient, where there is no abso- 
lute and genei'al fraud, for all the practical and useful ends of the elective 
franchise; it preserves to us unimpaired that essential principle of all free 
government, that taxation and representation should be " now and forever, 
one and inseparable ;" and it is deep-founded in the certainty and purity 
of the elective franchise — two qualities without which the privilege were 
as worthless dross. It discloses a rule which, from its simplicity and con- 
sequent incapability of fraudulent perversion, is suited lor all limes and 
all cijrcumstaQces ; for times of high party expitement and times of politi- 



cal quiet ; for times of degeneracy and times of lustrous Adrtue ; for " pi- 
ping- times of peace" and dark times of " grim-visaged war." And the 
best evidence of its soundness is that it is recognized in the election laws 
of every State in the Union, and has been from the very birth-hour of the 
Union to this bleeding hour of civil strife. 

Now, I ask my clear-headed friend from Massachusetts why he should 
not apply this philosophical reasoning of the Congress of 1S26 to my consti- 
tuents and their humble Representative? Is there not a peculiar, and even 
touching, applicability to llieir case? Sir, it looks to me as if the committee of 
the 19th Congress had seen far down the vista of time, and, glancing with pro- 
phetic ken at the dark scenes of this unhappy rebellion, had fixed up (if I 
may so speak) a set of maxims for our guidance in the very case before us. 

Is not the " elective privilege as important" to my constituents as to any 
other people? Have they not, like yours, Mr. Speaker, and those of other 
Delegates here, need for a Representative? Have they no rights to be 
shielded, no interests to be watched after? 

Sir, when the people of my district went to the polls, were they not 
there "in the exercise of their constitutional rights?" And did they not 
"go throusfh with the process of the election according to the prescribed 
rules?" The committee admit all this. Why, then, (to apply the just sen- 
timent of the committee of the Nineteenth Congress,) ''should they be 
deprived of the advantages accruing therefrom ?" 

And then, if you say that the votes of those loyal men who could go 
and did go to the polls shall go for nothing, do you not disfranchise all the 
loyal men of the district "of representation for a long period of time" — at 
least untd "this cruel war is over?" 

And is there any doubt who received the greatest number of votes, and 
was, therefore, elected ? The committee make no such pretension. I say, 
therefore, that, an election having been made, and the result having been 
ascertained beyond cavil, this House, on the principle of stare decisis, 
has no just autliority to do anything but ascertain "on whom the choice 
has fallen," and that, consequently, it has no ri^ht to open the question 
of who were absent from the polls, or of the reasons of the absence. 

I might here rest my case, and demand my seat on the precedent set for 
our imitation by our predecessors of a golden era. But, as it is insisted that a 
rule is now to beset for all time, I cannot forbear to look for a moment, by way 
of contrast, into the soundness of the one commended to us by the present 
committee, of inquiring into the number of absentees and the causes of ab- 
sence, as a means of ascertaining the popular choice. Can any one fail to 
perceive that this modern rule — one of the offsprings of this hated rebellion 
— is utterly unreliable? Sir, you must either require the whole vote of a 
district to be out or within reach of the polls, or you must take the majority 



6 

of the votes cast as an exponent of choice, or yon may not hit the choice, 
I will illustrate by two of the very cases referred to in the report of the 
committee as illustrative of the soundness of its position. First, the case 
of Mr. C ements, of Tennessee: Mr. Clements received in all the counties 
of his district 2,000 votes out of the usual vote of 6,000, one, county, Warren 
in rebel occupation, not voting. Now, who knows but tiiat if this county 
of Warren had voted there would have been a majority against Mr, Clem-' 
ents? And so in the case of Mr. Hahn, of Louisiana: he received in his 
district 2,799 votes, all others 2,319, a difference of less than five hundred. 
But the parishes of St. Mary's and St. Martin's, being infested with rebel 
guerrilla bands, did not vote. Now non constat if these two parishes had 
voted, that Mr. Hahn would have been elected at all. The two parishes 
migiit have put the majority against him. And does not this show that 
the moment you begin to look into the matter of absent voters you may 
miss the object you aim at, to wit, the ascertainment of the popular choice, 
and that there is but one safe and certain rule, to wit, that which has been 
adopted by every State in the Union, of taking a majority or the greatest 
number of votes actually east, without regard to absentees at all? 

Sir, there is no other sound rule, and the proof of it is, that the moment 
you departed from the good old practice which has prevailed from the 
foundation of the Government until this rebellion began, of adopting the 
majority of the cast vote as the test of election, and relying on the offieial 
returns of the proper State officers as conclusive until fraud is alleged and 
proved, you involved yourselves in confusion, uncertainty, shifting de- 
cisions, and endless labor for your Committee of Elections, and the sooner 
you return to the old system, the sooner you will place the elective fran- ■ 
chise on the most respectable and the securest basis, iind the sooner you will 
take from the Committee of Elections the stone of Sysiphus, which it has 
been heaving up the mountain from the first moment that this innovation 
on the elective principle and the old practice began. 

My friend from Massachusetts, I know, will answer this argument and 
all others militating against his peculiar theory by saying that each House 
of Congress is the judge of the returns, qualifications, and elections of its 
members. True ; and under that province this House may eject any 
member of the body, however legally elected, and there Would be no re- 
dress except by another appeal to the people, and then another ejection 
might ensue, and so on, until a bare quorum would be left; so that this 
admitted function of Congress is to be exercised with a sound discretion, 
intelligently, rationally, honestly, not arbitrarily. Then, sir, holding this 
power tjy the tenure of sound discretion and not arbitrary caprice, orr" " 
Congress so to exercise it as to subvert one of tlie noblest principles of 
American freedom, and more especially when under our Federal system 



there can be no extinction of a State except in the mode prescribed by the 
Constitution, and when, of course, the principle of representation must 
survive wherever there is a loyal population to vote ? And until Con- 
gress shall intervene and take charge of this whole subject of elections, 
as it may rightfully do, ought not the State laws and State usages to pre- 
vail and control ? Ought not, at least, this small respect to be paid to 
State rights and State dignity? Ought you, in the absence of United 
States laws, to go behind the State laws and State returns? Resume, if 
you please, your rightful control over Federal elections, but so long as 
you leave this matter of elections to the States, respect them, and the 
regulations which you yourselves invited them to adopt. And does not 
my friend from Massachusetts perceive that if we establish the modern 
practice of opening the whole subject of elections in each case witliout 
regard to State laws and State returns, there is danger that, in times of 
high party excitement and of demoralization, a broad margin may be left 
for political intrigue, and seats in Congress be given out and t;)ken away 
by arbitrary party requirement? And does he not see the necessity, yea, 
the high policy, of not departing from the established precedents in this 
important matter of elections? Sir, in no interest of society is stability 
more necessary than in that of elections. Stability is indispensable there; 
and I will add that it is more necessary in reference to the elective fran- 
chise than it is to the institution of property itself, because the elective 
franchise is the source of the rights of property, and of every personal rights 
and not only the source, but the shield. I am looking ahead to the time 
when we may not have a Committee of Elections composed of as able 
and as honorable men as those of tlie present committee. 

Now, I ask my friend from Massachusetts, in all respect, if this prece- 
dent of the days of yore — those pure and happy days of the Republic, 
the days of the second Adams, whose administration was a bright era of 
our land, and was as faultless and as pure as that of Washington himself 
— is not one that comes to my relief on the present occasion, entitling me 
to a seat with him in this Hall ? In the face of this precedent, can he do 
anything more than inquire whether I had, or had not, the majority of the 
legal votes cast? 

But, sir, leaving this precedent out of view, are there no other prece- 
dents to entitle me to membership in this body? I marvel much, Mr. 
Speaker, that the Committee of Elections, while they were looking up 
the precedents and declaring that all precedent was against me, did not 
think of one of very recent origin, and perfectly in point, the case in the 
last Congress, of the unlucky individual whom you have so long kept 
out in the cold, my humble self. I can only account for the omission by 
the fact that I was so silent and obscure a member that gentlemen have 



actually forg-otten that I was a member at all. And so, sir, I crave leave 
to refresh the recollection of the House, and to remind it (as the .Journal 
will show) that 1 was a veritable member of the Thirty-Seventh Con- 
gress, and that I obtained my seat in the very teeth and in ilefiance of the 
very principle on which the committee now seek to exclude me, and on 
the very state of facts now existing-. My friend from Massachusetts will 
sav, I suppose, that his committee, beino- unable to agree, did not make 
report of the specilic objection now taken, and so asked to be discharged 
from the further consideration of the subject, leaving the House to decide 
the matter for itself. True, sir ; but the committee reported the facts of 
the case, as in the present instance, leaving the House to de.-ide the prin- 
ciple, and to apply it, without regard to any opinion of the committee, and 
the House did decide and apply it. 

After staling that but three out of seventeen counties voted, and but one 
precinct in one of those three, the committee give the following results : 

"Toial vote cast 1,018 

For Joseph Segar 559 

For Arthur WiUson 438 

All others 21;" 

making my majority over Watson 121. 

In the present case the committee report twenty counties as composing 
my district, and a vote in four counties only, as follows : 

"In AcLomac 1.120 

Northampton 305 

Elizabeth Gin'' and York 242 

Total number of votes 1,667: 

Of these Mr. Segar received about 1,30D votes." 

'I'he only material difference is that in tlie first election seventeen coun- 
ties composed the district, and only three voted ; wliile in the late elec- 
tion twenty counties, under the new apportionment, formed the district, 
and only four voted. So that there is no substantial difference, in prin- 
ciple, in the two cases. 

True, the addition of three counties to the district increases its popula- 
tion, but that addition is more than oflsetted by the increase in th*^ <^gg^'G- 
gate vote cast and the increase of my own vote in the last election over 
the first. 

The able chairman of the committee will ar^ue, I can foresee, that this 
case of mine is not a precedent. He will tell you that when it was up in 
the last Congress he declared that the House might, without interfering 
with any position of the committee, either admit or reject me. But i hold 



it to be indisputable that the House in adraittiug me did so either as mat- 
ter of personal corapliment or on principle. 

But it could act well have been ou personal compliment ; for I suppose 
that it is my hard lot to be one of the least popular members that, ever sat 
in this body. That, however, is more my misfortune than ray fault; for 
an excessive infirmity of vision, besides giving me an appearance of al- 
most clownish awkwardness and a seeming stiffness, much disqualifies 
me for recognizing faces and associating faces and names ; and so, sir, I 
am debarred the pleasure of an extensive acquaintance with tise members 
of the House, which [ deepl}^ regret, for I know [ am socially and per- 
sonally much a loser by the exclusion inflicted by tiiis unhappy defect. 

So the House must have voted on principle, and not on mere compli- 
ment. Well, sir, all I have to say is, that if you voted on principle, stand 
by it, for principle is a thing to be stood by ; and if you voted for me for 
compliment's sake, please pay me the compliment once more, for I am as 
worthy now as then. Tine objection, then, that is taken to ray admission 
now is the identical one that was in the mind of the House when I was 
admitted in 1S62, and which, by my admission then, was expressly over- 
ruled by a conclusive vote. Na}^, more. My ease ifs far stronger now 
than it was then. Then, but 1,018 votes were cast in my district; now, 
there are near 1,700. Then, I received only 559 votes ; at the late elec- 
tion, 1,300. So that while you gave my district a Representative with a 
vote of just 1,000, you propose to deny it one with a vote of 1,700 ; and, 
while 3'ou awarded me my seat when i had only 659 votes, 3/0U talk of 
rejecting me when i received 1,300! 

Now, sir, I do not mean to say whel,her eo!Jsistenc3v- is a Jewel or not, 
or ivhether it is a rare jewel, or one worth keeping bright; but this I do 
aver, that my case was decided, and I think rightly decided, when, on the 
6th of May, 1862, I was admitted a member of the Thirty-Seventh Con- 
gress, because then there could not have been a single conceivable objec- 
tion to my admission but the one now urged — that the whole vote of my 
district was not in reach of the polls. And I maintain, further, that the 
faith of this House is most solemnly plighted to yield me and my con- 
stituents the seat we claim. You cannot reject me without breaking your 
faith. Declare me elected to one Congress and rule me out of another, when 
the principle is identical, and the facts even stronger in the last case than 
in the first ! Is that the way you keep sparkling the jewel of your faith ? 
Is that the way this honorable body, the representative of the morals of 
the nation, cherishes its consistency and its honor? Is this the example 
the law-makers of a great and proud nation are to set to the citizen mass- 
es ? Invite me, on the faith of your past action, into a most laborious 
and expensive canvas, and then turn me adrift, to be the sport of the ea- 



10 

vious and malicious, and an especial object of confederate taunt ! Sir, I 
trust this House Avill bring upon itself no such reproach. Let it be just 
to itself and just to me, by re-inscribing my name on the list from which 
the late Clerk so improperly struck it off. 

But is there no other precedent of the like purport? Why, sir, my friend 
from Kentucky, Mr. Casey, was allowed to take his seat in the Thirty- 
Seventh Congress with about seven hundred votes, just about half of my 
vote; and when, as we are assured by an honorable gentleman now a mem- 
ber from that State, [Mr. Smith,] that a considerable portion of Mr. Casey's 
district was held by rebels, and could not reach the polls. How is it> 
Mr. Speaker, that you " make fish of one and flesh of another?" 

I could bring up many other instances of gentlemen reaching the honors 
of this floor — some now upon it — who received a very inconsiderable pro- 
portion of the votes of their districts, but I have cited examples enough to 
show that when the committee said that the precedents are all against me 
they were decidedly wrong. I insist that precedent, both old and new, 
time-honored and recent, lights my way to a seat in this body, as plain 
as the road to the parish church. Indeed, after the vote of the last Con- 
gress in my favor, the question of my admission is not now an open one. 
On the principle of stare decisis it cannot be re-opened. To all intents 
and purposes it is res adjudicata. 

But a large portion of my district being in rebel possession, and not 
voting, the committee argue that I cannot be said to be the choice of the 
loyal voters of it, for (may be) if the loyal men in the counties in possession 
of the rebels had voted I might not have had the majority. How did the 
committee ascertain that there are any loyal men in that portion of the 
district which is in the rebel lines? How do they know that there is one 
single loyal man there? The presiunption is that there are no loyal men 
there. When a portion of a State rests under rebel rule, civil and military, 
the presumption of common reason is that all its people, or certainly most 
of them, are rebels ; for if they prefer the Government of the Union to the 
rebel government, why have they not left the one and sought the other? 
There is not a county in my district that is not in easy reach of the stars 
and stripes; and there is not a loyal man in any one of those counties that 
could not in a few days put himself within the Federal lines and the pro- 
tection of the United States. Why have they not left rebeldom and sought 
protection under the old flag? I, for one, fled from the one and sought 
the other. I had made up my mind, immovably, that I would under no 
circumstances live under treason's government ; and so I fled from the very 
heart of rebeldom, and fled, and fled on, until I caught sight of that glo- 
rious flag which is power and strengh and protection wherever its proud 
folds are flung to the breezje. If there are any loyal men in the rebel-held 



11 

portion of my district why did they not, as others did, "come out from 
among' the wicked? " 

The argument, then, of the Committee of Elections, that I am not entitled 
\o my seat because there Was a greater portion of loyal men in the rebel 
part of the district than in the loyal part of it, is based altogether on a naked 
assumption. They do not state an ascertained fact, but put forth only 
an airy speculation. They assume what they ought to joj'oi^e. They for- 
get that the onu,'; probandi is on them. I come here, sir, with a proper cer- 
tificate of the proper returning officers of my State, which raises at once 
the presumption that I had all the votes necessary, both in quantity and 
quality, to elect me; and I come here also with the presumption in my favor 
that all those in rebel lands are rebels ; and yet these presumptions, these 
most rational presumptions, to the benefit of which I am entitled as against 
any contestant, and indeed against all the world, until legitimately repelled, 
are to be rebutted and set aside, how? By facts and proofs? No, sir, by 
another and an inferior, less rational presumption — by a naked specula- 
tion ! 

Now, sir, I am not much of a lawyer, but I did learn this principle in the 
'slementary lawbooks, thai where a presumption arises in favor of a party, 
that party is entitled to the benefit of it until it is rebutted and the contrary 
made to appear. Now, I ask, in all candor,, have the committee fairly and 
squarely rebutted the presumptions with which I come here in my favor? 
I am here, as I Just said, with the presumption, first, arising from a proper 
•Certificate of election, that I had all the votes necessary to elect me ; and I 
am here wit^ that other most rational presumption, that in a rebel land there 
■are but few loyal men to break the monotony of treason's song; and how, I 
lask again, do the committee rebut these presumptions and take from me the 
fsenefit of them? Why, sir, by the bold and bald assumption that as there 
were 1,700 loyal voters in the counties that did vote, there must be a proportional 
number of loyal men in those that did not vote! And having settled the 
l)asis of the proportion, they work it out, by the the principles of Cocker and 
Pike, that as there were 1,700 loyal votes in the voting counties, there must 
be at least 5,10^ in the counties in rebel possession and not voting ! There 
are (to put the argument in semi-syllogistic form) 1,700 loyal votes in the 
four counties within the Federal lines that voted : ergo, there are 5,100 in 
the sixteen counties in the rebel lines that did not vote ! 

On what principle is it that the committee make the loyalty of the four 
counties that voted the basis for calculating the loyalty of the sixteen coun- 
ties that did not vote ? The circumstances of the two are totally difierent. 
The counties of Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, and York, early 
came back within the blessed scope of the Union. The proud emblem of 
<our national sovereignty and power, as it streams from the liberty-poles at 



12 

Fortress Monrod, and Fort Wool, and Camp Harailton, and YorktoTfn, and 
Williamsburg, can be seen by the naked eye of the people of the counties of 
Elizabeth City and York as each fold flutters in the breeze. The two large 
counties of Accomac and Northampton, in sis months from the date of Vir- 
ginia's secession, came, by ths expedition of General Dis, -within the protec- 
tion of the Union, and at once acknowledged its supremacy. Not so with 
the rest of the district. The Federal arms had made no lodgment there.- 
Practical protection bad not been guarantied or offered. The stars ^nd bars, 
not the stars and stripes, fioated there, and there rebpliion and treason stiO 
their vigils keep. Now, sir, in such entire dissimilarity of circxfinstanceg', 
how can you reason from the loyalty of the people in the protected, loyal 
portion of my district, to the loyalty of those in the unprotected, rebellion- 
bound portion of it? 

Five thonsacd one hundred loyal voters in the portion of my district in 
occupancy of the rebels ! Sir, I wish in all my heart it were so. It would 
be impermm in imperiG. It would be a power in that section more potent; 
than the power of the rebellion itself — a power that might "beard the lion in 
his den." It would put the Union party there loBg way ahead of the se- 
cession traitors. In the whole of this portion of my- district j the entire vote 
in the presidential election of 1860 was 7,840. The loyal vote in it now, 
say the conimittee, is .5,100. So that according to the committee's reasoo- 
ingit has 2,745 more loyal than disloyal voters — a thing which easiHot be pred- 
icated of any congressioBal district in Virginia. The same reasoning, as I 
tave ascertained by actual calculation, would make the number of loyaJ 
voters in the whole State 54,400, and of the disloyal 44,019, thus making 
the loyal vote greater by 10,881 than the disloyal — a result which will, I au3 
sure, expose to the chairman of the Committee of Elections theei>tire fallacy 
of the calculations on which he proposes to oust bis friend from Virginia 
from a seat beside him. Five thousand one hundred loyal voters in this the' 
most "Copperhead" region of the whole State ! Sir, I tell you, in all candor, 
that the counties outside the foar that sent me here, are the very last locality 
in my State to find loyal people in. It was in the soil of those counties that 
Mr. Calhoun sowed broadcast those .%eeds of nullificaftion and sectionalism 
which have ripened into a fruitful harvest of rebellion and treason. I have often 
heard it remarked, and the remark was but too true, that there were more' 
disciples of the Calhoun faith in the first congressional district of Virginia 
than in all the State beside. I know it to be so. I was often the Whig: 
elector in that district, was the representative of a portion of it in the State 
Le^'islature for more than twenty years, and I speak from personal knowl- 
ed"^e when I say that there has been from the lime of Mr. Calhoun's cel- 
ebrated Fort Hill manifesto in 1831, less attachment to the Union of these- 
States in this than any other portion of the Old Dominion. It has been a 



13 

soil more fruitful of a dividing and alienating sectionalism and of disunion 
doctrine than any in this whole land, except peculiarly traitorous Soutli Car- 
olina. Look at the antecedents ! Sir, when I first knew the district, it was rep- 
resented in Congress by old Burwell Bassett, a politician of the estreniest 
Stite-rights faith. Soon after came Richard Coke, an ardent nullifier, whose 
Magnus Apollo was John C. Calhoun. Next came Henry A. Wise, who 
l-an against Mr. Coke on the avowed ground of secession against nullifica- 
tion — the secessionist against the nullifier. True, Mr. Wise redeemed him- 
self not a little in the dark times when executive prerogative in the hands 
of Andrew Jackson was laying foul hand on the most sacred principles of 
the Constitution. He gallantly stood up for the '• union of the Whigs fof 
the sake of the Union." He even said that " office could not add a cubit to 
the stature" of Henry Clay — -a tribute as righteous as beautiful, and that will 
be echoed back by the wise and good of the world, "to the last syllable of 
recorded time." 

But alas I Mr. Speaker, qilam mutatus ab illo ! Mr. Wise relapsed, and 
beat badly Hill Carter, a gentleman of the olden standard, and an uncom- 
promising old-line Whig of the Henrj^ Clay and Daniel Webster school. I 
shall be no further his historian, but bring to your notice his successor, 
Thomas H. Bayly, a man of noble parts of both heart and head, but of ex- 
treme State-rights and southern proclivities, and one of the most enthusias- 
tic admirers of Mr. Calhoun. He was succeeded by a gentleman well known 
to many members of this body — Muscoe R. H. Garnett, whose political no- 
tions were at war from his boyhood with all national statesmanship, who re- 
garded a labor to subvert our blessed Union a labor of patriotism and of 
duty, and who since his pernicious doctrines eventuated in fragmenting that 
noblest fabric of human workmanship, held a seat in the rebel Congressj 
From such antecedents, Mr. Speaker, you can scarcely expect to find in a 
certain part of my district the army of Union men which the Committee of 
Elections have so kindly assigned to its custody. Why, sir, even the old-line 
Whigs of the western shore portion of my district have forgotten their instincts. 
The Critchers and the Lewises and the Saunderses and the Smiths and the 
Roanes and the Lacys and the Carters and theWilcoxes and the Shields and the 
Howards and the Greshams and the Cloptons and the Fleets, and hundreds 
of the like quondam politics, who shouted for " Tippecanoe and Tyler too," 
who sprung every nerve to make President noble, magnificent, immortal 
Harry Clay, who admired Daniel W^ebster as an intellect that any country 
might be proud of, who looked upon Millard Fillmore as one of the most 
unselfish, most patriotic, aud most sagacious statesment the North l^aa 
ever given to our common country, and who " did yeomen's service" in the 
cause of Bell and Everett at the last presidential election as being ^>ar excel- 
lence the Union ticket: all these, and thousands of others, the very elite of 



u 

Whig cliivalry ill district No. 1, hAre gone offon " the ptide of fofinfet days/* 
They ■• kept step to the music of the Union," and sang anthems to the 
Union -while Vitginia and the Union were together, but now "the harp of 
Tara sleeps on Tata's walls." Roused up by the bugle-blast of thei'r native ' 
land, they threw aWay the clarion with which they were wont to ring out 
joyous notes for the Union of their Washington. Sir, there never was a 
class possessing in reference to their State— their not ale sohlm — more of thd 
Cavalier spirit than do my old comrades, the old-line Whigs of Northum- 
berland and Lancaster and liichmond and Westmoreland and King George 
and Esses and King and Queen and Gloucester and Matthews and King 
William and Middlesex and Caroline and James City and Williamsbiirg and 
Xew Kent and Charles City. They loved the Union while their State and 
the Union could go on harmoniously together ; but When conflict came, they 
became clanaish, and, taking a position for their loVed Old Dominion, they 
soliloquized, each to himself, in the language of Rhoderick Dhu's fesolve : 

" This i-ock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I." 

And hence it Was that, without reference to old parly, they united al* 
J'nost to a man in ratifying the secession ordinance of their State. 

Why, sir, all the blockade running and carrying of supplies to the rebels 
from acfoss the Potomac takes place through the very heart of the non- 
voting portion of my district. Could this contraband passing and traffic 
be well carried on if there were scattered over it 5,100 loyal voters? Th6 
two recent raids upon that land of submissive loyalty, the eastern shore 
of Virginia, emanated from the county of MattheWs, one of the non-vot^ 
ihg counties, and in which I do not believe thefe is one loyal man of 
Woman. And throughout the western shore portion of the district a mer- 
ciless conscription has sent nearly the whole of the arms-bearing popu^ 
lation to the camp and the battle-field. 

Sir, t am not singular in these opinions. In confirmation of them I 
submit a recent letter from Hon. E. P. Pitts, the able and loj'al judge of 
tiie eastern shore circuit: 

"Your?-, asking my opinion oFthe loyalty of the coitnlifs of the first congressional 
rlistrict of Virginia, or that portion of it in rebel possession, has been received. I 
!iave resided in that district all my life, and have not been an inattentive observer of 
public affairs. I do not believe there are one hundred loyal voters in the portion of 
the district to which you allude, and if there is one he is unknown to me. That dis- 
trict has been under the control of the Calhoun school of politicians, and there are 
secessionists in it — and those not a fevv — of thirty years' starlding. It would be sur- 
prising if there were many loyal votes to be found there, at least till under Federt;' 
control." 

Confirmatory of Judge Pitts's opinion is a letter firom T. R. Bowden, 



15 

Esq., a son of the late Senator Bowden, and Attorney General of Vir- 
ginia, which I beg to read to the House : 

Norfolk, Virginia, AivU 6, 1864. 

My Deak Sir: Your letter of the 5th instunt, asking my opinion of the strengtli 
of the loyal vote of the first congrei^sional district of Virginia, has Ijeen received. 
In reply, I have no hesitation in stating that I believe the county of Accomac com- 
prises nine-tenths of the loyal voters of the district, excepting the county of North- 
ampton, in regard to whose loyalty I am not advised. 

My reasons for this opinion are based upon the following facts : 

That in the county of King and Queen every vote cast was given for Dr. Ricliai'd 
Cox, the unconditional secession candidate, who voted for the ordinance of secession 
in the Richmond convention "from first to last.'' In this county I am very well ac- 
quainted, my mother being originally from it. It polls 600 votes, and I liave not been 
able to bear of the first loyal man residing there. Essex county, adjoining, is in the 
same wa3^ Matthews and Middlesex comprise another district, which sent delegates 
to the Richmond convention. Mr. R. L. Montague (now a member of the rebel con- 
gress) was almost nnanimously elected to re|)resent them. There were but two who 
voted against him ; one of these died in Salisbury prison, and the other is now con- 
fined in Richmond. 

Gloucester county sent Mr. John T. Seawell to the convention. He was one of the 
original secessionists. Gloucester has not three Union men in her borders. Save 
the military, I doubt if there be one. My father was attending court in that county 
when the news came that Virginia had seceded, and being a notorious Union man, 
left the county in great haste. 

On the Peninsula (with the exception of three who reside near Williamsburg) I do 
not know a Union man who presses its soil. There may be a few, but it strikes me 
they would have all left when McClellan evacuated the Peninsula , knowing the immi- 
nent danger they were in. 

In regard to the counties in the northern neck, I am not personally acquainted, but 
am satisfied from reports that they are equally as destitute of any Union sentiment as 
those I have mentioned. Thej' did not poll forty votes against the ordinance of se- 
cession. 

In conclusion, I would remark that the first congressional district of Virginia is 
notoriously ahead of all others in devotion to secession. It furnished more original 
secession delegates to the Richmond convention, voted more unanimously for the or- 
dinance of secession, and has given a more uniform, hearty, and zealous support to 
the rebellion than any other in the State. 

These are my views. I give them frankly and unreservedly. If you deem them of 
any service, you are at perfect liberty to use them. 

Very truly yours, THOMAS R. BOWDEN. 

Hon. Joseph Segau. 

And a prominent citizen of Lancaster county, Wm. N. Harris, Esq.> 
who left that county because it was no place for a Union man to live in,, 
assures me that scarcely a Union man is to be found in the whole north-, 
efn neck of Virginia. 

Now, I ask my friend from Massachusetts, how he expects to find- 



16 

among- such a people, at this hour of peculiar estrangement, 5,100 loyal 
voters? Sir, " you may call spirits from the vasty deep, but will they 
come ?" The 5,100 loyal men are not there. They exist only in the 
fabulous comparisons of the committee. Instead of that large number, 1 
am satisfied there are not 250 loyal men in all that portion of my district 
that failed to vote at tlie late election. I do not mean to say that there 
will be no returning loyalty there, for I am persuaded that when our ar- 
mies shall have possessed this region so that tiiose who shall return to 
their homes may have assurance of security, thousands of the small far- 
mers and mechanics and working men will, as it was in the counties of 
Elizabeth City and York, joyfully wend their way back to the hearth- 
stones they love. But at the time of the late election, I know I do not 
err when I say that not 250 loyal men were there to vote. But say there 
were 500, or 800, and still it will be manifest that I received a majority of 
the loyal votes of the wliole district ; and a majority of the loyal vote, as 
I understand, is all the committee require. 

Now, sir, I appeal to my friend from Massachusetts, if I have not 
made good my position, that, on the principles of his own report, I am 
entitled to a seat in this body? Let it be borne in mind that the 
Committee of Elections do not require me to have received a majority of 
the entire vote of the district. They do not estimate for the disloyal 
voters, for disloyal men are not expected or allowed to vote. The mili- 
tary power has been even used to exclude them from the polls. All that 
is required of me, I repeat, is to show that I received a majority of the 
loval votes of the district; and I submit it to the House if I have not so 
made it appear. 

But, sir, concede that there are the 5,100 loyal votes assumed by the 
committee, and I contend that on all principle, and in all reason, I am to 
be credited with that entire vote, just as much as if it had been written 
down on the poll-books for me. 

Mr. Speaker, in many cases in practical life, as in law, finite beings 
must act upon rational presumptions, because they cannot always have the 
solutions of fact. 

Now, sir, I hold that one of the most rational presumptions that the 
mind of man can conceive, is, that those loyal men in my district who 
could not reach the polls would ratify the choice of their more fortunate 
brethren in loyalty who did reach them. Is there anything more conso- 
nant with reason, or, if you please, the instincts of the human constitu- 
tion ? Why, what do people ordinarily want a R(>presentative for ? Is 
it not to have their rights and interests looked after and protected ? Sup- 
pose, Mr. Speaker, that in your absence some considerate person under- 
takes to attend to some important matter of interest for you — saves, for 



17 

example, the sacrifice of your property — is it not the most rational sup 
position in the world that you would ratify the action of that considerate 
person, and give him your thanks besides ? And is not this the very 
■case between myself and the loyal voters who could not reach the polls 
and more especially when vv'hat little capacity I may possess to serve them 
is as well known to every man in the district as the road to mill? Will 
-not this be their reasoning: " Well, we couldn't get to the polls ourselves, 
but we are glad oar loyal brethren ehewhere did get there to elect a good 
loyal man to look out for us and help bring this unhappy war to a close?" 
If they would not so reason they would falsify all the instincts of our nature. 

Sir, this presumption that those loyal voters of my district who could 
not reach the polls would approve, ratify, and even rejoice at the choice 
made by their more fortunate brethren who did is so strong, so rational, 
so instinctive that it ought to prevail, and I ought to have the benefit of 
it until by some popular loyal demonstration to the contrary the presump- 
tion is overturned. I appeal to the House if this is not legitimate logic. 

Why call for positive proof that I am the choice of the loyal absentees, 
when, on every just principle, I cannot but be that choice ? 

Mr. Speaker, I am as well satisfied of it as I am that death awaits all mor- 
tal flesh, that, if the truth could be ascertained, there is not one loyal voter 
in the whole of that portion of my district outside the Federal lines that 
would not accept me unhesitatingly as his Representative in Congress, 
And why deal in mere technicalities and non-essentials at this trying hour 
when the life of the nation is at stake? And why are we not taught by 
the enemy ? They have in their congress senators and representatives 
from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, States that are not in the re- 
bellion, willing, I suppose, to have aid from any and every quarter. Why 
will you deny iis loyal men of Virginia the privilege of aiding you as far 
as we can in bringing this war of ruin and death to a close, and re-lifting 
the star-lit banner of the Union over an undismembered land ? We do 
not claim, sir, to be master-workmen, but we shall be content to do the 
best we can in our humble way. Maybe we can carry to the master- 
craftsmen the cement to re-unite the disjointed fragments of a once mag- 
nificent fabric of liberty and Union. 

It is not necessary (say the committee) that all the loyal men of a dis- 
trict should be at the polls to constitute an election. If they have an op- 
portunity it suffices, because if, having the opportunity, they stay away, 
the doctrine of acquiescence holds. On this point I have to say that, by 
an ordinance of the Wheeling convention passed in August, 1861, pro- 
viding that the voters of any county may vote in any other county and at 
any precinct, a large number of the voters within the rebel lines in my 
district might have voted if they had had the will and the nerve. 



18 

But they were intimidated, or kept from voting by the fear of conse- 
quences, it is intimated. Be it so ; but according to the ruling in the case 
of Biddle and Richard vs. King, if intimidation prevailed, and voters 
were kept back by intimidation, the votes thus lost are not to be taken 
into the account, and the result is to stand on the votes actually given in. 

But concede that the w^hole loyal vote of the rebel portion of the dis- 
trict was kept off by intimidation or duress or coercion : does it follow 
that we of the loyal portion of the district who were not intimidated or 
coerced are to be disfranchised of our representation in Congress? A. 
portion of the people of my district were intimidated from voting, or were 
under duress: ergo, those who were not intimidated, or not under duress, 
are to be stripped of their representative rights ! Sir, I confess to no 
such doctrine, because there is no justice in it ; because it is the punish- 
ing of one set of loyal men for the helpless misfortunes of another set of 
loyal men ; because it is blending the innocent with the guilty ; and be- 
cause, above all, it is ignored by one of the fundamental and most sacred 
maxims of Anglo-Saxon liberty, that ought to be dear to every American 
heart, because at America's Runnymede, Boston harbor, it lit the fires of 
that Revolution which blazed out into the broad, lustrous radiance of Amer- 
ican independence and American freedom ; and that precious, liberty-born^ 
liberty-preserving, century-honored principle is, that there should be no 
taxation without representation. 

Do you intend to call up from the grave to scorn you the hardy barons 
of Runnymede memory? Do you mean to dishonor the memory of John 
Hampden, and Algernon Sydney, and Russell, and Pym, of liberty-loving 
England; and of James Otis, and Uxenbridge Thacher, and Hancock, 
and the Adamses, and Franklin, and the Morrises, and Patrick Henry, 
and Richard Henry Lee, and Laurens, and the great Washington, of our 
own country? Will you fling a slur upon the good name of those thrice- 
gallant spirits who took counsel together on Boston Common, and there 
invoking the God of nations to inspire them with resolution for their great 
daring, ran down to Boston harbor, and at that hallowed spot threw over- 
board the tea which was the representative of British despotism, and the 
throwing overboard of which, as I have already said, kindled the fires of that 
Revolution which burst forth into a bright effulgence of American disen- 
thrallment and American glory? Are you going to perpetrate all this 
profanity, as you will be doing, by coercing my constituents to bear taxation, 
and a heavy taxation, without that first privilege of freemen of saying 
whether the tax is right, what sliould be its amount, and how imposed ? 

Mr. Speaker, do you suppose that the people of the Old Bay Slate, 
and of Virginia — for in that incipient wrestle with arbitrary power Mas- 
sachusetts and Virginia stood siioulder to shoulder — cared a straw about 



19 

the iwo pence a pound on tea ? Was there any practical oppression in it? 
"Could not every tax-payer in the colonies have paid the tax without feel- 
ing it ? What was it, then, that waked up Hampdens and Sydneys all 
over the " Old Thirteen," and brought the pigmy weakness of the colo- 
nies face to face v*rith the giant power of the mother (Country ? What was 
it but elevated devotion to a great and priceless principle? And shall we 
so shame our glorious origin, have we so soon become so degenerate as to 
spit upon this most cardinal, this corner-stone principle of freedom's 
Magna Charta ? Sir, a people that gives up such a principle, that does 
not fondly cling to it, even amid the throes of revolution, cannot long be 
free. Sooner or later they will pass under the yoke. Slaves they will 
be, and slavery they will richly merit ! 

Mr. Speaker, I can conceive no possible exigency to authorize the subver- 
■sion of the great principle of representation. While a remnant of loyalty is 
left, and until our federative system is utterly swept away, it should live as 
a thing too precious to let die. I acknowledge that in times of war great 
|)rinciples must some! imes yield to the public necessities, (though the necessity 
toust be honest and overwhelming ;) but the exigencies even of war can never 
<jall for the suspension of the right of representation in a popular Govern- 
ment, because it is a right of the vital essence of freedom, and the surrender 
uf it is the virtual dissolution of all Grovernment itself, and a remission, not 
to tyranny only, but to absolute despotism. There can be no safety for life, 
liberty, or property. 

Bat let me submit this point in a practical view. I have before me a 
letter from Mr. Donn, the principle assessor in my district, which furnishes 
?ne with the Federal taxation which is imposed upon just three of the voting 
'counties of my district-: 

In Accornac ., , ,.....,...,.,.,...., ..,, $7,691 

In Northampton....... ... 3,262 

In Elizabeth City..... 7,923 

For iEcompIete assessment........... ...................................... ...... 1,000 

$19,876 

There, sir, you have it in figures 1 Near twenty thousand dollars' tax per 
■Sijanum under jouv internal revenue laws, all of which has been actually paid 
in, and cheerfully paid ; and yet I am told that the people who pay this 
iieavy taxation are not to have a representative on this floor ! Sir, I trust 
the House will not subject my good constituents to so unjust and humiliating 
•a discrimination. I invoke for them the interven'^ion of my friend from 
-Massachusetts-^a representative of that noble State that gave birth to the 
•dauntless patriots who threw the tea overboard in Boston harbor. Why 
'Cannot my friend be as generous to the loyal people of my district as he was 



last year to tbe loyal people of Louisiana, when they sent Mr. Flanders an-J 
Mr. Hahn here, and when the Chairman of the Election Committee so zea^l- 
ously pleaded for their admission? I quote from the Committee's report on^ 
that occasion. After urging, most strenuoiisly, that the military Governor 
had the power to order an election, the report says : 

"The constitutioTiallj-eleeted Governor of Louisiana has furned tra'tor, and refused 
to discharge his c&nstitutional obligatioirs. What were the loyal voters to do 7 
Were they 'to turn traitors also, or be disenfranchised ?" 

I ask in all deference, and in the committee's own language, " what are- 
my poor constituents to do ?" Are they to ''tarn traitors also, or to be dis-- 
franchised ?" 

And the committee say again ; 

" The Constitution impos-es upon the United States this obligation :'■ 
" ' The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republifean forra 
of Government, and shall protect each of them from invasion ; and on the application' 
of the Legislature, or of the Executive, (when the Legislature cannot be convened,)' 
against domestic violence.' 

'' Representation [the committee go an to say] is one of tlj« -v^ery essentials of & 
republican form of Govern-ment, and no one doubts that the United States- cannot ful- 
fill this obligation without guarantying that representation here. It was in falfillmen& 
of this obligation that the army of the Union entered New Orlc-ins, and drove out the' 
rebel usurpation, and restored to the discharge of its appropriate functions tlie civiS 
Euthority there. Its work is not ended until there is representation here," 

Mark the language, Mr. Speaker I 

" Its work is Tiot ended nntil theie is representati-onhere ! '' 

Now all I ask is that this constitutional and generous logic he applied 
to the loyal voters of my district as it was to the loyal voters of the first 
and sec!?nd districts of Louisiana. The armies of the Union have, in thiat por- 
tion of my district, " driven out the rebel usurpation" and restored the civil 
authority there. But, sir, let me remind you, in the language of yoitr Com-- 
mittee, that your ^ work is not ended until there is representation here." 

The Committee further say : 

" Are this people [the people of Louisiana] tO' wait for representation here until 
their rebel Governor returns to his loyalty and appoints a day, or is tbe Government;^ 
to guaranty that representation as best it may ?" 

I beg to submit the same questions about the- people of my district. Are' 
we to go without representation until " Honest John Letcher " or' •" lilxtra 
Billy Smith" returns to his loyalty and helps to rehoist over his State the- 
old flag, or until Jefferson Davis and his wicked accomplices lay down the- 
arms of treason and rebellion? Or, rather, ought not the "Government 
to guarantee to us representation as best it max -" That is the idea, Mr>' 



21 

Speaker. Repf^sentation in some form or other — in tile best form ydtl Cati i 
I)o for us the best you are able^^" guarantee it to us as best you may^'^ 
and we shall be satisfied. 

Mr. Speaker, forbear this invidious discrimination against my con-- 
stitaents. Give us representation, or tax us not. And' I call upon my 
friend from Massachusetts, the moment I am ejected froin a seat here, to 
rise in his place and vindicate a great principle, and his own consistency^ 
and the consistency of the House, by offering a bill to relieve the people 
who sent me here of all Federal taxation. 

I am now to consider the last, and, I suppose the most formidable objec- 
tion to my admission, though I am happy to say, it has not been raised by 
the Committee of Elections, and I presume accordingly, has not its sanction. 
It is urged in some quarters that we have no State. It was a,rgued in the 
debate in the Arkansas case, that a " State should exist with a government." 
And I know well that some gentlemen on this floor entertain that most ex-* 
traordinary idea that there is no such political organization as the State of 
Virginia. Well, if that is so, most certainly I can have no right to come here 
as a representative from Virginia. Sut is it so? I think not. Sir, there cer- 
tainly was once a State of Vira-lnia. What has become of her? Has she 
gone up to the clouds ? Has rebellion swallowed her down and abrogated 
lier political existence ? I hold, Mr. Speaker, that as a State she is, under 
our system of Government, indestructible; once a State always a State, until 
let out by the three-fourths' vote, or until successful revolution and general 
international recognition shall have animated into being a new nationality^ 
But so long as we profess to be governed by the Federal Constitution, we 
Cannot extinguish a State. You may by arras subdue the people of a State 
to obedience to the Federal laws, and to their primary allegiance to the Fed- 
eral Union ; but you cannot, without violating the Constitution, and givin.g 
up the whole theory of our system and the whole theory of the rebellion, 
extinguish the State organisation, because a State, in our sj^stem, occupies 
relation to, and is indeed a part and parcel of, the Federal Government, and 
is subject to and to be governed by the Constitution of the United States as 
the supreme law. And on this principle Virginia is yet an existing State^ 
and I think I can make it apparent to the House in a very few words. 

The Constitution expressly provides, and it is one of the wisest provisions 
in it, because without it the Government of the Union would not last a Ins-* 
trum, would have been a rope of sand, a helpless organization without the 
power of self-preservation ; I say the Constitution provides that it shall be 
in no respect changed without the concurrent assent of three-fourths of the 
States that formed it, or subsequently became parties to it. So that Virginia 
is still a member of the Union, owing primary allegiance to it, until she 
shall have been let out by the regular action of three-fourths of her sistej? 



22 

ctates. Now, sir, Would not the making of the number of States one less iti 
bumber be a change, and a radical change, in the Constitution ? Would it 
hot be a destruction, »ro tanto, of the Constitution, the knocking aWay of 
one of its pillars ? And if you can, without the joint action of three-fourths 
of the States, knock away one pillar, may you not knock away another and 
another, until the whole fabric shall have fallen into ruins? I say, there- 
fore, that if you cannot" dot an i or cross a t"" in the Constitution without 
having the consent of the constitutional majority of three-fourths of the 
States, a fortiori, you cannot perform the momentous act of ending, at your 
will, the life of a State. 

\irginia, then, is somehow or somewhere a State, and to us, her loyal cit- 
izens, whose interest it is to keep posted about her, it is no difficult task to find' 
her whereabouts, and to explain how she came where she is. You will find 
her sitting in her qualified sovereignty and in her loyalty about eight miles 
off, down in Alexandria. There she has a Grovernor and a Lieutenant G-ov- 
ernor residing, and her Auditor, Treasurer, Secretary of State, and Attorney 
Greneral. There she had recently, in actual session a convention to revise 
her constitution, and adapt it to the extraordinary posture of affairs induced 
by the rebellion. Very recently her Legislature Was in regular session, and 
will shortly be again in extraordinary session. The people of the loyal coun^ 
ties that acknowledge this Government pay their taxes with punctuality and 
alacrity ; and I am happy to inform the House and our rebel friends in Dixie 
that the treasury of this State, much as some people turn up their noses at 
her, is in a very prosperous condition — -plenty of money, and not a very ex- 
pensive Government to maintain. It would be most fortunate for the rebel 
Government if it could exhibit so flattering a balance-sheet, and I rather 
think that Uncle Sam himself might well be congratulated if his fisc were in 
5,0 enviable a condition. She had some short time since two Senators in 
Congress ; one, most lamentably sleeps in a premature grave ; the other still 
sits and votes in the other wing of the Capitol. She has her civil author- 
ities, judges, magistrates, sheriffs, coroners, clerks, constables, and all the 
officers of a regular Government, in full exercise of their respective functions. 
She has, then, all the external and apparent characteristics of a State; and 
the only other question that can arise in relation to her is. Is she kgitimalelij 
a St:tte ? Just as much so, in my judgment, as a man is a human being, or 
a mule a brute. 

Let history speak. Shortly after the old State, in evil hour, seceded from 
the Union, the people of the northwest who desired to live yet under the 
Union of their fathers, held a convention at Wheeling and put in operation 
what is usually known as the Wheeling Government of Virginia, and more 
recently us ibe restored Government of Virginia, 1'his Government origin- 
ated in the irresistible necessities of the loyal men, who could not follow theif 



23 

State into the treason and ruin of secession ; and it was founded on the idea 
that the loyal people of the State constitute the State, or the political power of 
the State. From tiiUe to time other counties than those of the northwest attached 
themselves to this new organization, and among them the four that did me the 
honor to depute me their representative here. In course of time West Virginia 
became a separate State, but the counties in eastern and Piedmont Virginia 
that did not belong, geographically, to that division, and that did not of 
course desire to become a part of the new State, adhered to the restored 
Government, and such is their present position. If the Wheeling Govern- 
ment was a legal one, so is the present Government at Alexandria; because 
the latter is an emanation from and a continuation of the Wheeling Govern- 
ment. 

Then was the Wheeling Government a legal organization ? Undoubtedly 
it was ; and the argument is brief. Its legality rests on the firm ground of 
a decision of the highest judicial tribunal in the land, the Supreme Court of 
the United States. 

In the case of Luther vs. Borden, the celebrated Dorr rebellion case, the 
Supreme Court ruled that where there are within the limits of an already 
existing State two conflicting political organizations, that it is the legal, right- 
ful one, which is recognized by the Federal Executive. And the court de- 
cided (Chief Justice Taney delivering the opinion of the court) that when 
the recognition is officially made by an official act of the Federal Executive, 
there is no going behind it. President Tyler, by the act of proffering Fed- 
eral troops to the Governor under the old charter Government of Rhode 
Island, recognized the latter Government (the Supreme Court say) as legit- 
imate, and so it was ruled that the Dorr Government was a usurpation and a 
nullity. 

Now, sir, after the Wheeling Government of Virginia was organized, the 
President of the United States recognized it in various ways. Through his 
heads of Departments he held official correspondence and business relations 
with Francis H. Pierpoint, Governor of the State under the Wheeling organ- 
ization. As Governor, the latter was called on for troops, and furnished the 
quota of his State. 

The recognition by the Federal Executive was all that could be properly 
required, but both Houses of Congress acknowledged the new Government 
as legitimate. The Senate admitted two Senators for it, though it embraced 
not more than one-fourth of the population and territory of the original State ; 
and this House recognized it by admitting to this floor three Representatives, 
my friends Messrs. Bi'own, Blair, and Whaley. 

So the Wheeling Government, having been acknowledged by the Federal 
Executive, was a legal, coustitutional Government, and the present restored 
Government, being a continuation of the Wheeling Government, is equally 



24 

rightful and lawful; and here I might dismiss the question. But I am un- 
willing to place the restored Government on any mere inferential basis. I 
say that it has been specifically recognized by the President of the United 
States subsequently to the formation of the new State of West Virginia, and 
since the present restored Government went into operation. To say noth- 
ing of other acts of recognition, Mr. Lincoln in his amnesty proclamation of 
the 8th of December last, expressly recognizes all " loyal State Governments 
that have all the while been maintained." Such a Government is that of 
the restored Government of Virginia. By him it is acknowledged a " loyal 
State Government all the while maintained," and therefore he excepted it 
from the general plan of reconstruction. Perhaps I had better quote his 
words, and here they are : 

"To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say that this proclamation, so far 
as it rehites to State Governmsnts, has no reference to States wherein loj'al Govern- 
ments have been all the while maintained." 

Most evidently the President had in his mind this very restored Govern- 
ment of Virginia. 

The case h:is been supposed in this House of a recognition by the Execu- 
tive and non-recognition by one or both Houses of Conjrress, and then it has 
been asked. Where will a State Government be found? Sir, the answer is 
obvious. I hold that no recognition by either House of Congress is neces- 
sary. It is the Executive acknowledgement that stamps legality upon a 
State whose organizations couflict. Congress has no part nor lot in estab- 
lishing the legitimacy. The Executive, and the Executive alone, can exer- 
cise the legalizing function. And when it does exercise that function. Con- 
gress itself cannot look behind the act done. It binds not only Congress, 
but every citizen of the United States. 

Mr. Speaker, this restored Government of Virginia is as legitimate as the 
old charter Government of Rhode Island as against the Dorr Government, 
and as legitimate as that of Massachusetts or New York. And I put it to 
my friend from Massachusetts, how is it that a State can have two Senators 
in Congress and no Representatives? If Virginia is not a State, how can 
she have Senators in Congress ; and if, as a State, she is entitled to Senators 
in Congress, is she not sufficiently a State to be entitled to Representatives 
also, and to her electoral vote likewise? 

Mr. Speaker, in the name of the Union, do not ignore our young and miy 
be feeble Government, by denying us representation in this body. We arc 
not strong, sir, but we are none the less a State. Why, sir, the little State 
of Delaware, scarcely equal in territorial extent to a single county in Vir- 
ginia, is, nevertheless, just as much a State as her empire sister, New York^ 
just (to use the language of Vattel) as a " dwarf is as much a man as a giant 
and the smallest republic as much a State as the greatest empire." 



25 ^ 

Sir, ought not our weakness to be even our protection ? Suppose you see 
the brawny giant strike down to the earth the helpless dwarf. What emo- 
tion rises in your bosom but of execration of the cowardly act ? And so, if 
the strong arm of this mighty Grovernment shall fell to the earth this youth- 
ful State in her weakness, sweeping away her whole civil establishment, and 
substituting for it the chafing harshness of a pure military Government, and 
thus depriving her of what the Constitution guarantees to every State, a re- 
publican form of Grovernment, what will be thought of us and said of us by 
the Christian nations of the earth ? What will be our portion but an enlight- 
ened scorn ? How will the thing read in history ? Let the historian write 
it down : " Here was a State (it will be noted) that could not brook rebellion, 
and that set up for itself, to avoid the crime and penalties of rebellion, a 
nascent nationality struggling against treason, yet loving the old flag, and 
clinging with fond devotion to the blessed Government which is the ' bright 
particular' conception of human statesmanship, and which made us the freest, 
the happiest, and the greatest people on the globe, promising to be the nu- 
cleus for a grand gathering of future loyalty, until the whole length and 
breadth of the Ancient Dominion shall be brought under the gentle sway of 
peace, and back to allegiance to the best Government on earth; and yet a 
State like this, with promises and prospects like these, was, in her helpless- 
ness, struck down by the crushing arm of the all-powerful Government of 
the United States ! " Shall we write any such chapter in the history of our 
country? No, sir; let us, as the President of the United States has done, 
recognize her as a '• loyal organization all the while maintained ;" and let us 
take her in, and keep her in, until her weakness becomes strength, and the 
song of redemption shnll ring through all her ancient domain. 

And I will venture to say, Mr. Speaker, that if it be really desired to bring 
back the " mother of States and statesmen," in all her ancient consequence, 
within the scope of reconstruction, you can in no way so surely accomplish the 
desideratum as by preserving unharmed her restored Government. It will 
be a sure nucleus for loyal formations. As the Federal armies advance and 
rear the standard of the Union, men who were forced into this cruel war 
against their will, and those that tire of it — having tasted its bitter fruits — 
and those who at heart sigh for the old flag and for peace, will hasten within 
the lines where they will find a double protection, the civil protection of their 
own accustomed municipal authorities, and the military protection of the 
United States. And I venture to express the opinion — and I do it very con- 
fidently — that the best possible system of reconstruction is that of restored 
State organization and gradual accretion. It will be far more efi'ectual than 
the territorializing policy or the establishment of military Governments. 
There is not in it the harshness, the alienation, the embitterment, the rend- 
ing, the crush, the crash, that will follow any system that waits for general 



26 

subjugation before it is applied. Its operation will be gentle and soothinf>^, 
because gradual and restorative; and under it the people will find themselves 
almost imperceptibly back at their homes, and almost unconsciously remitted 
to their local governments and associations, and to the blessinr>-,s of the Union 
of their fathers. Just as the amputation of a limb under the sedative influ- 
ence of chloroform : the surgeons knife does its gashing work, and his saw 
its hackling, and the limb is off, and when the patient wakes up he feels no 
pain, and is unconscious that a limb is gone ! 

Mr. Speaker, we need no intervention of Congress to provide for us " a 
republican form of governmont." Spare us, we beseech you, all such gra- 
ciousness. Non tali auxilio, nee defoisoribii-; istis I Sir, whatever call there 
may be for the guarantying of republican forms of government in olher 
States, there is no necessity that the United States perform that oiEee for 
us. We call not on Hercules for help. Our own shoulders are at the whee!.^ 
We have already a republican form of government — one far more republicaa 
than any that Congress is likely to assign us ; for give us one when you will, 
it will be more or le^s a military government, and no military government 
can be republican. Gentlemen of this people's branch of Congress, spare 
this government to us ! It is our own handiwork — the emanation of our own 
free will and choice — the creation of our own native people, and not of 
strangers — a government grappled to us by the strong hooks of a thousand 
dear associations of nativity and home, and twice a thousand sweet memories, 
yet lingexing around the broken vase, that will bid us look wishfully back to 
the Stars and Stripes, and " bring the light of other days around us." I in- 
voke you again, Mr. Speaker, wrest not this our own cherished government 
from us ! " Woodman ! spare that tree." 

Let us remember, unceasingly, one thing, that which should be written 
" in letters of living light" over the lintel of every American door and deep 
engraven on every American heart, that in this country Grovernments spring 
from the people, not the people from Governments. 

And is it clear that Congress has any rightful authority to interfere aught 
with this Government of ours ? Can it interpose by virtue of its obligation 
to guaranty to each State a republican form of Government ? Mr. Madison, 
in the forty-third number of the Federalist, expressly declares that this obli- 
gation extends only to a guaranty against •' aristocratic or monarchical inno- 
vations," Is there in our State government any aristocratic or monarchical 
feature ? Have we any privileged classes, any titled nobility, any sceptered 
king? None. Then Congress cannot intermeddle. There is nothing to 
guaranty. As to us, it is functus officio. In this regard its '' occupation is 
gone ;" or, rather, it never had any. 

And according to the same illustrious authority, having maintained con- 
tinuously republican institutions, we have a right even to " claim the Fed- 



27 



W (i''(S 



era! guarantee." And this is just what we do. We demand your as?urance 
of this our republican form of government. We claim protection, not ex- 
tinction, at your hands. If you do not give us the protection you fail of 
your constitutional duty, and thrust us into revolution. 

One more point and I have done. I am not uniware, Mr. Speaker, that 
whispers have been going around of my disloyalty. I am not unaware 
that calumny, guided by sordid meanness and black corruption, has essayed 
to "filch from me my good name" in this regard. I know it well. Vil- 
liany, sir, generally aims to cover up its footmarks, but sometimes, as if 
Providence were looking on to punish it, it does not put soil enough over 
to disguise them. In tliis matter, I have trailed its tortuous track, and 
traced out all its dark doings. By letters clandestinely used in 1861 in 
this Hall — so clandestinely that I never had sight of them, though I did 
learn casually the base purport of them — it made its stealthy effort to pre- 
vent me from taking my seat in this body that it might be filled on a new 
election by one of the arcb-conspirators, who is unworthy to unloose the 
lachet of any Union man's sboes ; and from that hour to this this puppy 
villiany has been barking at my heels, never once halting at hypocrisy, 
falsehood, or fraud. But this I will say, no man of honor and truth, and 
no one himself truly and disinterestedly loyal, ever impeached my loyal- 
ty. And I must say, Mr. Speaker, that if I am disloyal I have a very 
strange way of showing it. I do not deny, sir, that I made an effort to 
go with my State. I'^ollowing the instincts that bind us all to the land 
under whose sod the bones of our ancestors rest, and where loved kindred 
live, I did endeavor to find arguments to reconcile me to secession. It 
was the struggle of a not uneventful life. Sir, I saw the bark of my State 
as she was about to set out on her perilous voyage. There she was, "all 
in the Downs." I watched her as she left her moorings and neared the 
pier to take in her freight of human life, and I gazed on the eager throng 
as it pressed down to the pier. 

Among the first to tread her decks was my own and only son — a noble 
boy, around whom had gathered the honors of the university of his State, 
but who, alas ! yielded to that fatal infatuation that a citizen must go with 
his State, right or wrong. Another look, and two unbearded youths, fresh 
from the college hall, my orphaned nephews, loved and cared for as my 
own children, followed that son. I looked again, and there stepped aboard 
as magnificent a specimen of mortality as ever eye rested on. And beside 
him stood one of queenly mien, his beautiful wife, ray own dear child. 
And clinging to the mother was her cherub boy. There they all were ; 
the son and the nephews were there, Eneas was there, and Creusa, and 
the boy Ascanius. JKit old father Anchises was not there. He stood 
upon the shore eyeing the flapping canvas, a struggle going on in his 



28 

bosom which loosened the very heart-strings, a struggle which I pray God 
may never wring my soul again — an agonizing struggle between instinct 
on the one hand and conscience on the other — a struggle whether I should 
follow the most loved on earth or stand by my country. But, blessed be 
God ! conscience triumphed over instinct. I loved the stars and stripes 
better than my own flesh and blood! 

I disloyal, Mr. Speaker? I who have loved this Union from my boy- 
hood, who have worshiped at its altars with as pure and deep a devotion 
as ever bowed down votary there ; who (as 1 have said on other occa- 
sions) have all my life regarded the Constitution of the United States as 
"the best system of civil liberty that ever emanated from human hearts 
and human heads, and as the accumulated political wisdom of the world 
from the time of Magna Charta to 1789 !" Disloyal to that Union which 
(I have often said) is connected in my mind with a thousand, and twice 
a thousand, glorious associations ; with the wisdom that conceived and 
the blood that cemented it ; with our prosperity and strength at home and 
our power and glory abroad ; with that gallant flag that flings out the 
stars and stripes of our great country on every ocean, lake, and gulf, and 
sea ; with that renown which exhibits her unconquered on a thousand 
battle-fields ; with all the bright glories of the past and brighter hopes of 
the future — disloyal to a Union like this ! No, sir, no ! 

"Tis slander ; 
Whose edge is sharper than the sword ; whose tongue 
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath 
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie 
All cortfers of the world : kings, queens, and States, 
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave." 



LB D '05 



